


Shuffled

by TrulyMightyPotato



Series: Royal Flush [9]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: A Bit Of Backstory, Loneliness, New Situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 22:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12397185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrulyMightyPotato/pseuds/TrulyMightyPotato
Summary: Gar wasn't sure what to expect his first days as a detective, but he'd hoped they go well.





	Shuffled

_May 1923_

 

_Day One_

Gar wasn’t sure what he was doing today.

He’d shown up at the police station like the chief had ordered, and he’d simply been sent to wait in an office for whoever was going to be his partner during his rookie year.

Maybe MatPat would be around somewhere. Hopefully he still worked here and hadn’t left or moved away in the month since Gar had written to him to let him know he was coming to Boston. Hopefully the two of them would be able to resume the friendship they’d made during the war, and maybe they would end up doing work together. That would be amazing.

Day one, and it looked like his trainer wasn’t even going to show up.

On the plus side, he had had plenty of time to look around.

The office was fairly large, but the reason for that seemed to be because it had two of everything in it—two desks, two bookcases, two filing cabinets, and so on. The desks were positioned in an L, with one facing the door directly and one more pressed against the wall as if trying to hide.

He wasn’t sure if he was in the right place. He might have heard the chief wrong, but he hoped not. It would be awkward to end up in the wrong place on your first day—probably not too unusual, but definitely awkward.

He still wasn’t sure who his trainer was, because there hadn’t been any names on the door. Apparently whoever this office belonged to didn’t work under the normal rules for the station, or maybe the door had just recently been replaced, or something, or, or, or.

Gar didn’t know. He was just trying to keep himself calm for when his trainer showed up—his partner for a whole year.

What if they didn’t get along? What if they got seriously hurt or killed during that year? What would happen to Gar then? What would happen if _Gar_ got hurt during his rookie year? Would he be kicked out? Would he be forced to work through whatever recovery needed to happen?

The door to the office opened, and Gar looked up to see his trainer.

MatPat grinned broadly at him. “You’re here!”

Gar slid off the desk he was sitting on and stood, smiling himself. “I am.”

Suddenly, he was enveloped in a warm hug, and he couldn’t help but laugh and return it.

“How have the past four years been?” MatPat asked as soon as they pulled away, his hands sitting comfortingly on Gar’s shoulders.

“Long.” Gar grimaced slightly. “Not great. Moving was a pain, too.” Then he smiled again. “But I’m here now, and I get to do this.”

“I know, it’s great.” MatPat grinned even more. “You ready for your first day?”

“Yeah?” Was MatPat saying what Gar thought he was saying?

“Then come on. Let’s get you issued all your gear. It’s going to be a great year.”

Gar stood there for a minute and just looked quizzically at MatPat.

“They didn’t tell you?” MatPat blinked. “I’m your trainer. I asked for you as soon as I found out you were coming here.”

Gar grinned, and followed.

 

_Day Two_

Gar arrived in what he now knew to be his and MatPat’s office early. He wanted to get a really good look around, since he and MatPat had spent the entire previous day getting Gar acquainted with the tools of the trade and filling out all the paperwork needed to get Gar fully registered as a rookie detective in the city of Boston.

“Did you see the new kid yesterday? MatPat’s going to have his hands full with someone that young.”

Gar glanced out of the office and down the hall to see two bulls chatting.

“MatPat’s _new_ partner isn’t very experienced, I feel. He’s going to be regretting it soon.” Officer 2 shook his head. “I thought he would be grieving for longer than he did. Guess he had some sort of secret grudge against Parker and just pretended to be sad about his death.”

Parker? Who was this?

“You how MatPat’s always claiming Parker didn’t just die, he was offed by someone? What if he was the one to off him—and this new kid’s the replacement. The new Jason.” Officer 1 snorted.

“Wonder just how long it’ll take him to go the way of Jason, then.”

Gar hesitated, then walked away from the door. He didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping (despite the lack of eaves in the vicinity).

It only took a few more minutes for MatPat to appear in the office, and he looked annoyed.

“Is everything okay?” Gar asked.

MatPat nodded. “It will be. You ready for today? We’re headed to the courthouse so I can show you around—we end up spending more time there than you’d think.”

Gar nodded.

 

_Day Three_

As soon as Gar walked in the door to his house, Dante ran up to him.

Gar walked into the living room and sat on the floor, then curled around Dante and cried.

After a few minutes, comforting arms slid around him, and the three of them just sat there for a long, long time until Gar was exhausted and just wanted to sleep forever.

Why was this so hard?

It wasn’t even the work—Gar had known that was going to be hard. It was everyone else. He’d figured out who this Jason Parker was by now. MatPat’s old partner. He’d died just a few months before.

He was three days in and bulls around the station were already making bets on when he’d die.

Murmured comforting words and deep cuddles from Dante later, Gar finally got up and went to his room, only to find a single leather-bound journal sitting on his bed. More curious than anything, he opened the cover to find a note with familiar handwriting.

_Gar,_

_One thing every good detective needs is a journal to keep track of notes and clues in an investigation. Well, and a want to be in the job. You have that second part, so I’m here to fix that first part._

_Here’s your first ever investigative journal._

_Now, everyone does this a little differently, so do what feels right to you, but I’d recommend keeping track of all your notes in this. Makes it nice and easy to keep track of cases, because everything is in one piece. I’d also recommend keeping track of how you personally are doing, because if you don’t take the time to stop and think about it you can end up doing something you’ll regret—anything from ending up dead from lack of caution or anger to getting one too many cakes at the bakery because you’re awfully sad. (Don’t ask.)_

_I’m not going to ever look in this. Not unless you show me something, of course, but that’s almost never going to happen. This is for you. Do what you want with it. Draw. Write. Scream frustrations to the sky. Devise ways to murder coworkers. Find things to blame on Jason. Whatever you do, do it._

_I’ll see you tomorrow._

_MatPat_

Gar stared at it for a moment, then looked down when his leg was bumped by Dante. “Record feelings, huh?” He dropped onto his bed and stared at the journal, running his hands over the blank pages.

And then he wrote.

 

_Day Seventeen_

“A speakeasy? We’re going after a speakeasy?” Gar blinked at MatPat from his chair in their office.

MatPat nodded. “Associate Justice Fischbach asked us to focus on that. I haven’t told him we would yet, I wanted to talk to you about it first, see what you thought about it.”

Gar shrugged. “You’re the senior one here.” And he was just the replacement partner.

MatPat titled his head. “I’m not making this decision alone.”

Gar hesitated.

MatPat frowned and walked over to Gar’s desk. “What’s wrong?”

Gar sighed. “If Jason… If he wasn’t dead, would you still have taken me on for training?”

MatPat had slumped slightly at the mention of Jason, but he nodded. “Absolutely. Both of us would have.”

“Is that even allowed?”

“Oh, we were a persuasive pair.” MatPat shook his head and smiled sadly, likely remembering him. “He was just as intelligent as I was, but he was more likely to intimidate people into giving answers than I was—he excelled at pretending to be grouchy.”

Gar hesitated.

MatPat just waited.

“What happened to him?”

That was the question that had been burning through Gar’s mind every time he’d heard the man’s name, or one of the many quips the others had said about him ‘going the way of Jason’.

“That…” MatPat took a deep breath. “That depends who you ask.”

Gar blinked and sat up straight in his chair. “What do you mean?”

“Official ruling is he drunk himself to death.” MatPat shook his head. “I’m fairly sure he was murdered.”

Gar raised his eyebrows. “How?”

“I don’t know.” MatPat sighed, looking down. “You’re the first person that hasn’t told me I’m crazy for thinking that—outside of Steph, at least.”

“Three bulls have shown up dead since I’ve started here.” Gar pointed out. “It’s not terribly unusual.”

MatPat nodded. “Yeah.” He looked up and paused. “I’ve heard what they’ve said, by the way.” He gestured to the rest of the station. “They’re just being awful. You’re doing great. Don’t worry about the hand life deals you too much, or the one it deals them. Being a detective means the cards constantly get shuffled. It’s scary sometimes, I’ll admit it, and often dangerous. But I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I promise.”

Gar let out a long breath, then nodded. “Okay.”

“Let’s get to work, then? We can keep talking on the road.”

So they did.


End file.
